Nicole Heslip | Oct 21, 2026
https://brownfieldagnews.com/news/ai-powered-app-could-help-dairy-farmers-identify-calf-pain-and-improve-welfare/
Michigan State University researchers are developing technology to help dairy producers better understand animal pain and provide more individualized care.
Barry Bradford is chair of dairy management in the Department of Animal Science.
“We have people working on pain in baby calves, how do we determine if they’re in pain? And of course, then what can we do to mitigate it?” he says the project is exploring.
He tells Brownfield video analytics and other behavioral data collected during hot-iron disbudding procedures are being used to create pain assessment systems with AI.
“To try to automate pain detection in calves, and pairing that with direct measurements of pain so that they can have sort of a gold standard to refer back to,” he shares. “They’re doing some really innovative work.”
Disbudding is used on dairy farms to prevent horn growth to protect workers and other animals.
The technology could help producers reduce unnecessary medications, lower disease risk, better allocate labor, and provide long-term health benefits.
Similar research using machine learning is also underway, monitoring pain in other livestock including beef cattle, pigs, and horses.